While international organizations are imperfect and often unable to achieve their goals due to limitations imposed by state sovereignty, it would be unfair to claim they are ultimately useless. Some organizations, like the WHO and WTO, have achieved tangible improvements in global health and economic conditions. However, decision making is difficult for organizations like the UN due to states prioritizing their own interests over global stability. Overall, international organizations represent important ideals of cooperation and prosperity, even if progress is imperfect.
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GP Essay
Original Title
‘Most International Organizations Are All Bark and No Bite
While international organizations are imperfect and often unable to achieve their goals due to limitations imposed by state sovereignty, it would be unfair to claim they are ultimately useless. Some organizations, like the WHO and WTO, have achieved tangible improvements in global health and economic conditions. However, decision making is difficult for organizations like the UN due to states prioritizing their own interests over global stability. Overall, international organizations represent important ideals of cooperation and prosperity, even if progress is imperfect.
While international organizations are imperfect and often unable to achieve their goals due to limitations imposed by state sovereignty, it would be unfair to claim they are ultimately useless. Some organizations, like the WHO and WTO, have achieved tangible improvements in global health and economic conditions. However, decision making is difficult for organizations like the UN due to states prioritizing their own interests over global stability. Overall, international organizations represent important ideals of cooperation and prosperity, even if progress is imperfect.
International organizations are ultimately useless in solving
the worlds problems. Discuss.
Following the Second World War which saw death and destruction in an unprecedented scale, world leaders, determined not to let such horrors repeat, convened to establish international organizations in hopes of achieving a more peaceful, secure and prosperous world for all. 50 years onwards, we witness their dreams and ideals embodied in international organizations like the United Nations, the World Health Organization and World Trade Organization. Although these international bodies are undoubtedly far from perfect, it would be unfair to claim that they are ultimately useless in view of their significant contributions to the goal of a better, more prosperous world. It is understandable why some would claim that most international organizations are failures. Very often, such organizations, despite their public advocation, fail to achieve any actual impact. An oftencriticized organization is the United Nations (UN), which was established to achieve global peace, security and cooperation. But despite boasting an extensive membership of more than 300 member nations, the UN has often found it hard both in terms of making significant decisions and enforcing them. For instance, despite having UN peacekeepers in the country, the UN was unable to stop the Rwanda genocide in 1994 that resulted in the death of tens of thousands. More recently, the UNs inaction towards the massacre of civilians by the Syrian government, the indiscriminate bombing of Palestine by Israel as well as the Russian Federations repeated incursions and provocations toward Ukraine drew much criticism from the global community. But to claim that such failures are solely due to the failures of the UN and other international bodies over-simplifies the situation. Often, the reason why such international organizations fail to achieve significant results is due to the fact that states are primarily interested with their own national interests instead of global stability. As a result, decision-making is difficult because these state actors will always decide based on their own interests, making collective action and consensus buidling extremely difficult. Furthermore, even when most of the countries agree, international organizations still find themselves powerless to effect change due to the concept of national sovereignty which claims that nations reserve the sole right to decide on domestic issues. Because of these inherent problems and limitations, it is no wonder then that international organizations often find their hands tied when facing global problems.
However, it is certainly not fair to generalize all international
organizations as complete failures as there are plenty of organizations that have been successful in achieving tangible improvements to the world. An example would be the World Health Organization (WHO), which was established to improve global health and sanitary conditions. In the past 3 decades, the WHO has drastically improved global health standards. Not only has it increased worldwide awareness about diseases such as Malaria, AIDS and Tuberculosis, it has also managed to reduce the incidence of such diseases and even eradicate some. The WHOs litany of achievements include the eradication of small pox, the neareradication of polio, as well as the global reduction of AIDS by 38% since 2001. In view of such significant and tangible improvements of global health, I belive it would be a gross injustice to claim that the WHO has been a complete failure. Another of such organization is the World Trade Organization (WTO), which was established to promote free trade and global economic cooperation. As of today, the WTO supervises more than 95% of total global trade. Despite occasional allegations of favouring developed countries and its inability to stamp out protectionism, the WTO has significantly changed the global trade landscape. Through promoting a global environment conducive for free trade, the WTO has allowed nations to grow economically and benefit from increased trade connectivity. A prominent example would be China, where millions were catapulted out of poverty as a direct result of its economic growth when it joined the WTO. Closer at home, Singapore, a small nation devoid of natural resources, has also relied on a fair and free global trade environment for her growth and survival in the past 5 decades and will continue to do so. To common consumers, perhaps the easiest way to experience the benefits of WTOs work is to walk into a supermarket where we can enjoy goods from all over the world at the convenience of our doorsteps. Ultimately, we have to realise that we live in an imperfect world with imperfect institutions. Although these institutions may lack effectiveness we desire due to the various limitations imposed, these limitations are often important and necessary because they prevent abuses of power and an overstepping of authority by such international organizations. Regardless of their effectiveness in achieving change, these international organizations are significant because they represent the ideals and dreams of our forefathers that a more peaceful, harmonious and prosperous world is always within our reach.